Rick Moran Sagely Informs Us: Exposing Beauchamp's Fables Has Not -- Repeat, Not -- Secured The Victory In Iraq

Stop the presses! Trolling for an Instalink, and writing the sort of contrarian piece that he hopes will get linked for balance -- no matter how stupid that "balance" is -- Rick Moran resorts to the crude claims of the far left.

He postulates that we believe, as the left claims, that exposing a media scandal in TNR actually counts as a battlefield victory in Iraq, perhaps the final victory. Chastening Franklin Foer and Jonathan Chait, we believe (per his account), has sent Al Qaeda in Iraq scurrying for cover.

And of course Moran predictably poses as "one of us" in order to lay this slander upon us.

Exposing Beauchamp was a good thing, don’t get me wrong. But holding TNR and their soon to be ex-editor Franklin Foer to account for their laziness, their bias, and their incompetence is enough. That and putting a poultice on the black eye Beauchamp deliberately gave the military is all the victory that blogs can claim in this matter.

Um, I'm sorry, can you cite the blog actually stating that this constitutes a victory against Al Qaeda? Can you please specify these unhinged blogs which have somehow managed to confuse Jonathan Chait for Moqtada al-Sadr?

Decloaking Beauchamp will not bring us closer to “victory” in Iraq – if such a thing existed outside of the fevered imaginations of an ever dwindling number of conservatives. It will not make up for Abu Ghraib – another story whose perceived importance far, far outweighed any relationship to the reality of what actually happened. It will not induce the American people to change their minds and embrace the war effort. Nor will it shut the left up which, while something devoutly to be desired, is alas an effort doomed to failure.

I'll take Moran's views on the shut-up-ability of the left as authoritative. As he traffics in their slurs, I imagine he's pretty much on their wavelength.

This medium, we have to keep reminding ourselves, is still fairly new. And as more and more people enter the blog universe – many looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – it is inevitable that they too, wish to get in on the fun of scalp hunting. One way to climb up the winding stairs to the top of the ziggurat is to outshout your competitors while attaching more importance to a story than it deserves. This will get you traffic, links, and the admiration of your fellow bloggers.

Another way to get traffic, links, and the admiration of a different set of your fellow bloggers is to simply attack those advancing a story. If you don't have a piece of a story, you can grab a little attention just by denigrating the efforts of others.

I understand the game. I’ve played it for three years, shamelessly piling on and then shooting off emails to big bloggers hoping they would find my insightful, pithy comments about the swarm du jour good enough to link. There’s nothing inherently dishonest in this method of self-promotion – unless what you write isn’t what you truly feel in which case you won’t last long anyway. But I truly believe now that blogs have to move beyond this phase. To what end, I have no idea. I couldn’t have foreseen where blogs are now 3 years ago when I started so my powers of prognostication when it comes to blogging and internet media are practically nil.

Yeah, I believe you've played the game, Rick. Speaking of "shooting off emails to big bloggers hotiping they would find [your] inisghtful, pithy comments about the swam du jour good enough to link," did you happen to shoot off an email to AllahPundit, who, oh yeah, just happened to link you?

How about Instapundit? Are you hoping he might find your comments suitably insightful and pithy?

By the way, Rickie-- no denigrated your landing an interview with the censored sergeant. No one claimed that you were attaching "too much importance" to your own minor get, and no one slurred you by claiming you believed your interview constituted a battlefield victory against Al Qaeda. No one, in short, attempted to denigrate your rather minor accomplishment simply because it was not ours and hence had no way to seize onto it except by demeaning it.

It was a relatively minor interview in the scheme of things. We all understood that to be the case, so implicitly and thoroughly we didn't think it necessary to lecture you like a child on that point.

But you, on the other hand, imagine that we need your sage counseling about the relative triviality of a media scandal in the face of a large war in Iraq. We might have told you to stop wasting time with such a minor story as the censored sergeant and concentrate on the "Big Picture" as well. But we didn't, because, unlike you, we're capable of allowing someone else a small degree of credit for a small amount of new work on a story, even if it's a relatively inconsequential one.

Yeah, you've played the game, Rick. But not well, and not subtly.

Enjoy the Allahlanche and the coming Instalanche, buddy. You've not earned it.

But I do know where to go, in the future, for perspective. Whenever Rick Moran has done nothing at all on a story, I know he'll at least be there to provide me with the perspective and balance that I lack.

Although I should say: Rick, you are aware that cautioning perspective about the story and trolling for Instalinks does not, in fact, constitute a battlefield victory in Iraq? We haven't actually won the war due to your post, you know. So don't get all giddy about your spike in traffic and imagine those unique visitors actually constitute captured Al Qaeda terrorists. They don't, Rick.

You know that, right?

Just thought I'd return the favor and provide you with a bit of sage advice as well.

AllahPundit Says Moran Didn't Email Me: I could have asked him; I was wrong not to.

We'll see if Instapundit just happens to stumble upon Moran's blog today.

posted by Ace at 12:11 PM

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